THE LINK BETWEEN TASK DIFFICULTY AND ATTENTIONAL BLINDNESS

MONKEYS IN PLAIN SIGHT: THE LINK BETWEEN TASK

DIFFICULTY AND INATTENTIONAL BLINDNESS
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THE LINK BETWEEN TASK DIFFICULTY AND ATTENTIONAL BLINDNESS

INTRODUCTION

In everyday life, we are continuously overloaded with a mass of sensory stimuli. Attention, is

the cognitive process that enables us to filter and select relevant sensory information, so we

can achieve optimum situational awareness. Thus, our ability to appropriately detect and

respond to visual changes depends on focused attention. However, we sometimes fail to

perceive salient changes in our visual field, especially when we do not expect them, a

phenomenon called ‘inattentional blindness’ (IAB).

One cognitive explanation for IAB is the ‘perceptual load theory’ (Lavie, 2010) which

suggests that when faced with tasks requiring high perceptual load, IAB is more likely to

occur as little capacity is left to process irrelevant distractors. Hence, IAB is less likely when

carrying out low perceptual load tasks, which allow for extra capacity to remain, thereby

increasing our ability to process distractors. Lavie’s perceptual load theory could therefore

explain the problem of task difficulty as an explanation for IAB. Various literature shows that

more difficult tasks (of higher load) call for more attentional resources which makes it more

strenuous to detect visual changes because attention is divided.

A study by Chabris, Weinberger, Fontaine and Simons (2011), examined IAB using a

simulated real-world event. In their study, participants had to chase a confederate along a

road where three other confederates staged an assault nearby (the fight acting as the

unexpected stimulus). During this task, participants had to keep count of how many times

the confederate they were chasing touched his head. The amount of attentional load was

manipulated by allocating participants to a ‘dual counting condition’ (high load) in which

THE LINK BETWEEN TASK DIFFICULTY AND ATTENTIONAL BLINDNESS

they were instructed to keep a separate mental count of the number of times the

confederate touched his head with his right and left hand whilst participants in the ‘single

counting condition’ (low load) were simply told to keep count of the total number of times

the confederate touched his head. The results from Chabris et al’s study demonstrated that

participants in the hard task (dual counting) condition were more affected by IAB as only

42% noticed the fight taking place compared to 72% in the easy task (single counting)

condition who noticed the fight.

Additionally, research studying the effect of ‘conversational divided attention’ on IAB

(Hyman, Boss, Wise, McKenzie, & Caggiano, 2010) using the naturalistic example of walking

whilst talking on the phone has obtained similar results. Hyman et al discovered that only

25% of subjects who were walking and engaging in a phone conversation simultaneously

noticed a flamboyant unicycling clown near their walking path compared to 51% of subjects

walking whilst not engaging in cell phone conversation who noticed the clown. Both Hyman

et al and Chabris et al’s experiments highlight that more difficult tasks lead to a higher level

of divided attention which increases the likelihood of IAB.

In our experiment, we proceeded to further investigate whether task difficulty

affected the likelihood of IAB. We hypothesised that more participants in the hard task

condition would fail to notice a moving monkey on a screen compared to participants in the

easy task condition.

METHODS

An opportunity sample of 283 undergraduate psychology students took part in our

IAB experiment. We conducted our study using a between-subjects design and proceeded to

randomly assign the participants to two conditions; the easy task (A) or the hard task (B)
THE LINK BETWEEN TASK DIFFICULTY AND ATTENTIONAL BLINDNESS

with 138 subjects in condition A and 145 subjects in condition B.

Both groups were instructed to watch two ten-second videos displaying one white

shape and five black shapes which bounced off the sides of the box. The first video did not

include the unexpected stimulus (a monkey) as it was intended to familiarise the

participants with the task, whilst in the second video, a monkey appeared on the right-side

of the box after the first three seconds of the video and slowly moved to the left. In the

second video, the monkey was visible for approximately 4 seconds. Participants in the easy

task condition were told to count the number of times the white object bounced off the

boarders of the box whilst participants in the hard task condition were told to keep a

separate count of the number of times the white object bounced off the horizontal and

vertical boundaries of the box.

As a measure of explicit attentional capture (asking participants if they were aware

of the unexpected stimulus), after watching the video and recording their mental count of

bounces, all participants were asked three standardised questions; (1) Did you notice

anything unusual in the second video which differed from the first video? (2) Did you notice

anything unusual in the background of the second video aside from the other black objects?

(3) Did you see a black monkey moving across the screen in the second video? If a

participant responded with ‘Yes’ to the third question, they were counted as having noticed

the monkey.
THE LINK BETWEEN TASK DIFFICULTY AND ATTENTIONAL BLINDNESS

Percent Monkey Seen

Group A: 58.7%

Group B: 40.0%

RESULTS

70.00
Monkey seen
60.00

50.00

40.00

30.00

20.00

10.00

0.00
Group A (Easy Task) Group B (Hard Task)

Figure 1. Percentage of participants recorded as having seen the monkey in Condition A

(Easy task) and Condition B (Hard task)

The results from Figure 1 above show that more participants in the Easy task

condition (58.7%) saw the monkey in the second video compared to participants in

the hard task condition where only 40.0% noticed the monkey moving across the

screen.

DISCUSSION
THE LINK BETWEEN TASK DIFFICULTY AND ATTENTIONAL BLINDNESS

It is evident that task difficulty influenced IAB as participants in the hard task

condition failed to see the monkey despite its salience as their attention was more focused

on counting and separating the number of times the white object bounced vertically and

horizontally which left few attentional resources to process the unexpected stimulus (the

monkey). On the other hand, participants in the easy task condition were more likely to

notice the monkey as their task (counting the total number of white object bounces)

required less attentional resources. Thus, our experimental hypothesis was confirmed. Our

results also confirm Lavie’s perceptual load theory (2010), as reduced ability to process

distractors led to increased IAB in condition B.

A possible explanation for this performance difference is the influence of top-down

processing (processing with the aid of prior knowledge). When completing selective-looking

tasks, objects other than the target tend to be ignored and we use our schemas (mental

representation of past experiences and expectations) to help us make sense of any gaps.

Therefore, it could be argued that subjects merely assumed the moving monkey was

another black object (as the first video only displayed black and white objects), which made

them blind to the unexpected stimulus and resulted in inattentional blindness.

Our results are parallel to the findings from Chabris et al’s (2011) and Hyman et al’s

research (2010) in which the percentage of subjects that observed the unexpected stimulus

was lower in the hard task conditions compared to the easy task conditions. We also

compared our results to those obtained from Simons and Chabris’ famous ‘gorilla study’

(1999) which showed that a lower percentage of participants (45%) completing a difficult

task (keeping a separate count of aerial and bounce passes in a video of a basketball game),

noticed either a person in a gorilla suit or a woman with an umbrella walk through the

action compared to 64% of subjects only keeping count of the total number of passes (easy
THE LINK BETWEEN TASK DIFFICULTY AND ATTENTIONAL BLINDNESS

task) noticed the unexpected stimuli.

Despite the relevance our findings provide to IAB research, our study is not without

flaws. It was discovered that as part of Simons and Chabris’ data collection process (1999),

the data of subjects who had previously heard of or participated in similar experiments

investigating IAB was removed, a procedure we did not follow in our study. This potentially

raises concerns about the reliability of our results as participants may have responded to the

follow-up questions based on prior knowledge acquired during their A-level studies or

through wider reading. Thus, as an implication for future research, experimenters could

ensure that the data from such participants is removed so that it does not reduce the

reliability and validity of the results.

This brings attention to the problem of reactivity which may have acted as a

confounding variable due to the use of leading questions e.g., ‘did you see a black monkey

moving across the screen in the second video?’. It could be argued that such questions may

have prompted participants to falsely claim that they had perceived the monkey. This issue

could be rectified in future research by simply asking participants if they noticed any

unusual occurrences and using more open-ended questions (e.g. ‘if yes, please give details

of what you saw’) which enable participants to properly describe what they claimed to have

seen and avoid false responses.

Furthermore, Simons (2000) avers that paradigms of explicit attentional capture may

not be a clear, definitive measure of attentional capture (as simply asking participants if they

noticed the unexpected stimulus does not provide conclusive evidence as to whether they

saw it). Therefore, future research which combines measures of implicit attentional capture

(i.e. examining if the presence of an unexpected stimulus affects task performance) and

explicit attentional capture is needed.

THE LINK BETWEEN TASK DIFFICULTY AND ATTENTIONAL BLINDNESS

References

Chabris, C. F., Weinberger, A., Fontaine, M., & Simons, D. J. (2011).

You do not talk about fight club if you do not notice fight club:

Inattentional blindness for a simulated real-world assault. I-

Perception, 2(2), 150-153.

Hyman, I. E., Boss, S. M., Wise, B. M., McKenzie, K. E., & Caggiano,

J. M. (2010). Did you see the unicycling clown? Inattentional

blindness while walking and talking on a cell phone. Applied

Cognitive Psychology, 24(5), 597-607.

Nilli Lavie. (2010). Attention, distraction, and cognitive control

under load. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 19(3),

143.

Simons, D. J. (2000). Attentional capture and inattentional

blindness Elsevier Ltd.

THE LINK BETWEEN TASK DIFFICULTY AND ATTENTIONAL BLINDNESS

Simons, D. J., & Chabris, C. F. (1999). Gorillas in our midst:

Sustained inattentional blindness for dynamic

events. Perception, 28(9), 1059-1074.